Connect, collaborate, mentor, and study together, in real time

The aim of OpenStudy, at www.openstudy.com, is to make the world one big study group where students can get help and also give help. OpenStudy, the first large-scale open social learning network, offers students around the world peer-to-peer learning and support study groups for a variety of subjects. OpenStudy, through an interactive social community, facilitates learning outside the classroom by connecting them to collaborate, mentor, or simply study together.  

Why use OpenStudy?

Learners

- Get help right now — your study emergency resource, just in time, when you need it
- Why study alone? — your study network, always there, always on
- Pay it forward — learn by helping; feel good about helping someone in need
Educators
- Engage your students — connect with students on their terms using a social learning network
- Facilitate peer learning — create study groups to help your students learn better
- Know your students — see who needs help, recognise early signs of trouble

Who’s using OpenStudy?

- Students for questions, homework, projects, and test preparation
- Open courses like MIT, Yale and others — to create online study groups for learners around the world
- Independent learners — to get help, give help, and connect with other students
- Professors — for online office hours and student interaction
- Colleges — to connect thousands of students within and across campuses

Described as a killer startup, OpenStudy.com combines open courseware with a social learning network for scalable and effective blended learning.  It actually provides students with a vital component missing that is missing in online learning: Access to other students who are studying the same things, at the same time. The students can get help with their homework and assignments, by connecting with both their real world classmates and students around the world.  OpenStudy uses AI recommendation engines to match students, and real-time technologies to facilitate online interaction.
Also, the website lets the student follow both people and topics. Once you ferret out someone who really can help you, you can opt to receive notification of his or her current activity which might include answers to those highly-elusive questions bugging you. And research has attested to the fact that collaboration brings on several benefits in learning communities, including improved engagement and academic achievement.

OpenStudy also facilitates study groups so that learners need not learn alone while pursuing a OpenCourseware programme. Towards this end OpenStudy has partnered with Open Yale, New York University’s Open Education programme, and MIT’s Open Courseware to help students to study together.  The Open Yale’s online open courses which are supplemented by OpenStudy include: Financial Markets with Professor Robert Shiller, Fundamentals of Physics with Professor Ramamurti Shankar, Introduction to Ancient Greek History with Professor Donald Kagan, Roman Architecture with Professor Diana E E Kleiner. And, with the New York University Open Education programme the courses supplemented include American Literature I: From beginnings to the Civil War by Professor Cyrus Patell, New York City: A Social History by Professor Daniel Walkowitz, Introduction to Sociology by Professor Harvey Molotch, Genomes & Diversity by Dr Mark L Siegal. With MIT OpenCourseWare, OpenStudy joined forces to provide initially an interactive environment for those studying three MIT courses, namely, Introduction to Computer Science, Single Variable Calculus, and Chinese I. After the amazing response — There are now 3000 students participating in the CS study group, 2400 in the calculus study group, and 800 in the Chinese one — MIT and OpenStudy have added study groups for ten more courses now, and these, in just a couple of week’s time, have elicited enrollment from hundreds of students.

Using OpenStudy is akin to accosting someone who can help you with what you’re studying right now or help someone who is struggling with a problem and could really use your help…somewhere across the globe. It’s easy to join Open Study and enjoy the benefits and the experience to the full. The wholesome experience and benefits come to you free of cost! And, if you have a Facebook account you would be able to use that to sign in, and start finding the answers to these questions that are keeping you from getting those grades. You can also get short, timely messages and stay updated on a wide variety of topics from OpenStudy through Twitter. To get an idea about how OpenStudy works you could view an intro video at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt2s21BSYTc

OpenStudy was founded in 2007 by Ashwin Ram, a Georgia Tech professor, Preetha Ram, an Emory University dean, and their former student and CTO Chris Sprague. OpenStudy is a profit for business funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Georgia Research Alliance, and is located at Georgia Tech’s ATDC Centre in Technology Square, Midtown Atlanta.

“Like any successful startup, we work hard, have fun, and believe in what we do. We invite you to use us, join us, and spread the word. We want to change the way the world learns, and we’d love to have you be part of it” say the founders of OpenStudy.